Where to start? Planning stage

[sinned141]

Hi All

In my efforts to learn about VBA (which has been going on a while and has mainly involved trawling this site for answers)
I started helping my friend with way to make building quotes easier. I managed to create a workbook which is pretty basic and I feel I could do more, when I say "I" I mean I think that it is probably possible to do more.

Well several months later and I am no further than I was before, I think the problem is in my planning, I have several ideas that seem good but I have no particular order in the way I am tackling this.

Does anyone have any views on the best way to go about panning the project?

 

[tybaltlives]

Lots of stuff in the internet, but here are some project basics:

Find out what your customers need. This is translated into a broad scope of what you want to do. Or, if you have a great idea, share that with your customers and see if they like it as much as you do.

Take the scope and develop specific requirements that achieve what you want to do. This becomes a list of programming tasks. Think about requirements in terms of the scope though because each requirement needs to mesh with the others so the project is successful.

Give yourself a schedule, with milestones. This helps add some urgency to your project so you don't mill around doing nothing.

Stick to the scope and when you are done check the requirements so you know you did everything.

 

[BrianMH]

Another good thing to do is rank the requirements in order of the most important to least important (or must have and nice to have). Then work on the highest priority first. Try to break things into functions so you can reuse them. Generally the smaller you can break a problem down the easier it is to solve especially if these are actionable steps.

Problem
Exiting the house

Steps to solution
Check if the door is locked
if door is locked unlock the door
Open the door
Walk through the door
Close the door
Lock the door

Each of these is a particular action and if I were to program this I would do it in seperate functions so I could change the order of them if for instance I wanted to enter the house.

 

[JamesW]

-snipped-

Some good examples there.

I would also recommend getting a pen and paper out and drawing/mapping out exactly what the customer (or yourself) wants to do. If they want fancy looking userforms then draw them first. If the spreadsheet needs x number of rows in yellow and a special button in a certain place, then map it out either on paper, on MSPaint or simply mock something quickly on a spreadsheet.

The worst thing is getting half way through a project and having to start again because you misunderstood the customer's needs.

Ask as many questions to the customer (or yourself - if it's a personal project) as possible.

Write down all of your ideas. If you aren't sure how to tackle them then have a quick look on Google!

Finger crossed for you.

2 excellent websites:

CPearson.com Topic Index
MrExcel.com | Excel Resources | Excel Seminars | Excel Products

I would also recommend any book by John Walkenbach:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Walkenbach/e/B000APG96Y

 

[BrianMH]

In regards to requirements gathering it is best to ask what they want to get out of the solution too. Often customers will ask you to solve a problem in a way they see fit when there are often better solutions. If you get a broader idea of what they want from a solution you can often offer them things they hadn't even thought of making both of you happy. Once you have that and agree a solution the details are important. Get your scope and have them sign off on it. Anything out of scope will require a new development cycle once the current one has finished.

 

[sinned141]

Thanks Folks

I think that will help, have lots of little snippets of ideas and this should help to sort them.

I already have several books that I inherited with the laptop and there are a few Walkenbach books in there which is what got me into trying out vba but I have difficulty transferring some of the concepts into my needs, I'm a slow learner but a persistent one lol

 

[sinned141]

Thanks again everyone

Based on the suggestions given I have relooked at everything,
What I originally created was a workbook with two sheets and a userform to fill the customer details on the first sheet, the second sheet was for the quotes he is giving. It is a template and once he presses a button it asks him to state how many sections that he needs quotes for and produces a sheet for each. He then has the option to print this with a couple of columns hidden and also to save it as a pdf.
He is more than happy with this as I have shown him how to use it and it fulfils his requirements
What I would like to do for him, as I have looked at the other aspects of his works there are lots of points which I feel may be automated and also areas where he could maybe look at trends in quotes won/loss.
STAGE 1
I have used the suggestions and feel that I need to
Have the starting point as a question of wether it’s a new customer or not
If it’s a new customer have a form to fill there details into a customer list
If existing then have a way of picking them from the list.
Then the blank template for quotes should be loaded up for filling in.
Once this is filled the quote to be saved into a folder (current bids) and the option to print and/or email as pdf
STAGE 2
Based upon the result of the bid, I would like him to be able to open the quote from the (current bid) Folder and for it to have the option to amend, action (if bid is won), archive (if bid is lost)
Lost bid- I would like this to open another user form which asks a few questions about why the bid was lost and records this in a separate workbook so he can review these and try to reduce any losses in future
Won bid- I would like this to use the information on the quote along with some additional questions to build a work file folder. With sub folders for; risk assessments (most of these would be generic and just require some details from the quote form regarding site address etc), Site pictures, Certificates, etc.

I could continue with this further with things like Gannt charts based on the quote etc. but I think I have given myself more than I am capable of already lol.
What I’d like to know is if anyone here thinks I am heading down the right path or has any suggestions for different methods. ( I need it to be as user friendly as possible as my friend is not great on the computer)

 

[sinned141]

On a side note I got the answer to two questions right on here today, I've doubled my record. maybe soon i'll be able to post some responses confidently

 

[BrianMH]

I'd say you are moving in a good direction. If you could do this in access it would be much easier to build and maintain. It sounds like you want to create a sales database and access is set up for this much better than excel. Good luck on your project!

 

[sinned141]

Thanks BrianMH

I thought about using access but I am not sure how easy it is to bring information from there to excel, I have never used access before. also the quotes are generally very site specific.
Would access be better suited for holding the generic risk assessments?

Thanks again